SCENE III. Before OLIVER'S House.

Enter ORLANDO and ADAM, meeting.

Orl. Who's there?

Adam. What, my young master? O my gentle master ! O my sweet master! O you memory 3

Of old Sir Roland! why, what make you here?4
Why are you virtuous? why do people love you?
And wherefore are you gentle, strong, and valiant?
Why would you be so fond to overcome
The bony priser of the humorous Duke? 5

Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.
Know you not, master, to some kind of men
Their graces serve them but as enemies?

No more do yours: your virtues, gentle master,
Are sanctified and holy traitors to you.

6

O, what a world is this, when what is comely
Envenoms him that bears it!

Orl. Why, what's the matter?
Adam.

O unhappy youth,

Come not within these doors! within this roof?

The enemy of all your graces lives:

3 Memory for memorial or remembrancer. A frequent usage. So in the Communion Service of the Episcopal Church: "A perpetual memory of that his precious death," &c.

4" What are you doing here?" See page 9, note 6.

5 "Why would you be so foolish as to overcome?" Such was the more common meaning of fond in the Poet's time. And he often omits as in such cases. - Priser is prize-fighter, or contender for prizes. Here, as before, humorous has the sense of moody or capricious. See page 23, note 26.

6 The Poet is fond of thus mixing incongruous words, in order to express certain complexities of thought. In like sort, even so grave a writer as Richard Hooker has the expression heavenly fraud, in a thoroughly good sense. -Envenoms, second line after, means poisons; not that which makes a man venomous, but that which acts like venom upon him.

Roof for house; the common figure of putting a part for the whole.

Your brother

Yet not the son

(no, no brother; yet the son

I will not call him son

Of him I was about to call his father)—

Hath heard your praises; and this night he means
To burn the lodging where you use to lie,

And you within it: if he fail of that,

He will have other means to cut you off:

I overheard him and his practices.

This is no place; 8 this house is but a butchery:

Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it..

Orl. Why, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?

Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here.

Orl. What, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food? Or with a base and boisterous sword enforce

A thievish living on the common road?

This I must do, or know not what to do:

Yet this I will not do, do how I can;

I rather will subject me to the malice

Of a diverted blood and bloody brother.

Adam. But do not so. I have five hundred crowns,
The thrifty hire I saved under your father,
Which I did store, to be my foster-nurse
When service should in my old limbs lie lame,

And unregarded age in corners thrown:
Take that; and He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
All this I give you. Let me be your servant :
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;
For in my youth I never did apply

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;

8 Place here means residence or home; sometimes used so still. - Prac

tices, line before, is plottings, treacherous devices.

9 Blood turned out of its natural course. Blood here stands for affection,

Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility:
Therefore my age is as a lusty Winter,
Frosty, but kindly.10 Let me go with you;
I'll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities.

Orl. O good old man, how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service swet for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat but for promotion;
And, having that, do choke their service up
Even with the having: 11 'tis not so with thee.
But, poor old man, thou prunest a rotten tree,
That cannot so much as a blossom yield
In lieu of 12 all thy pains and husbandry.
But come thy ways; we'll go along together;
And, ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
We'll light upon some settled low content.

Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee,
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. —
From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
Here lived I, but now live here no more.
At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
But at fourscore it is too late a week: 13

Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
Than to die well, and not my master's debtor.

[Exeunt.

10 Kindly in the sense of natural, and therefore healthy. See vol. iv., page

220, note 2.

11 Because their promotion makes them too proud to serve.

12 In return for; as always in Shakespeare. See vol. i., page 200, note 9. 18 A week put for an indefinite period.

Enter ROSALIND in Boy's clothes, CELIA drest like a Shepherdess, and TOUCHSTONE.

Ros. O Jupiter, how weary are my spirits!

Touch. I care not for my spirits, if my legs were not

weary.

Ros. I could find in my heart to disgrace my man's apparel, and to cry like a woman; but I must comfort the weaker vessel, as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat therefore, courage! good Aliena.

Cel. I pray you, bear with me; I can go no further.

Touch. For my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you yet I should bear no cross,1 if I did bear you; for I think you have no money in your purse.

Ros. Well, this is the Forest of Arden.

Touch. Ay, now am I in Arden; the more fool I : when I was at home, I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.

Ros. Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes

here;

A young man and an old in solemn 2 talk.

Enter CORIN and SILVIUS.

Cor. That is the way to make her scorn you still.
Sil. O Corin, that thou knew'st how I do love her.
Cor. I partly guess; for I have loved ere now.
Sil. No, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess;

1 In Shakespeare's time certain English coins had a cross stamped on one side, and hence were called crosses. This gave occasion for frequent puns. So Scott, in Woodstock, chap. iii.: "No devil so frightful as that which dances in the pocket where there is no cross to keep him out." See, also, vol. ii., page 17, note 2.

2 In old language, solemn is often used in the sense of serious or earnest.

Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover
As ever sigh'd upon a midnight pillow:

But if thy love were ever like to mine,
As sure I think did never man love so,
How many actions most ridiculous

Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?

Cor. Into a thousand that I have forgotten.
Sil. O, thou didst then ne'er love so heartily!
If thou remember'st not the slightest folly
That ever love did make thee run into,
Thou hast not loved :

Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,
Wearying thy hearer in thy mistress' praise,
Thou hast not loved :

Or if thou hast not broke from company

Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,

Thou hast not loved. -O Phebe, Phebe, Phebe !

Ros. Alas, poor shepherd! searching of thy wound,

I have by hard adventure found mine own.

4

[Exit.

Touch. And I mine. I remember, when I was in love I broke my sword upon a stone, and bid him3 take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile: and I remember the kissing of her batlet, and the cow's dugs that her pretty chapp'd hands had milk'd: and I remember the wooing of a peascod 5 instead of her; from whom I took two cods, and, giving her them again, said with weeping tears, Wear these for my sake. We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.

3 The imaginary rival for whose visits to Jane the stone was held vicariously responsible.

4 An instrument with which washers beat clothes.

5 That is, from the peascod as representing his mistress. Cod was formerly used for the shell of peas, what we now call the pod. Pea-pods seem to have been worn sometimes for ornament.

6 Mortal is said to be used in the Craven dialect as a general intensive,